10thD They Don't Need Air
by VAPX007
Summary: Donna's first real bit of flying lands the Tardis on a spaceship where the crew are actually happy to meet them. Could there be anything more suspicious about these aliens than that? With so many important races in the universe the Doctor can't quite remember this lot ... and why didn't anyone warn him about the ... rats? Fun/Friendship/Adventure/Science Fiction.
1. Spacegirl

___A/n: I don't own Doctor Who. This is __'Fanfiction' as in 'I'm not getting paid for writing about someone else's fantastic blue box invention I promise'._

_A/n: Here is a short and sweet 20K-or-less episode featuring the Doctor and Donna at the height of awesomeness!__ Seriously though. There are but two alien-only scenes in this whole story. No want Donna then no want read._

_A/n: Please register all complaints, technical disputes, etc. in the box at the bottom of the page. Unless it's about the topical content of the ad banner. All I can say to that is ... isn't it about time to clean your browsing cookies?_

___A/N: For continuity 'It Doesn't End There' came first as did the fourth series but any fan of any ____Doctor Who _era should be capable of figuring out how the last plot finished just from how the next plot starts.

* * *

**10thD THEY DON'T NEED AIR**

* * *

**Part One: Spacegirl**

* * *

There was a final nerve-wracking jolt and the Tardis wheezed and whirred to a stop. The Tardis had landed.

"There you go!" The Doctor said from the jump seat behind Donna. "Wasn't too hard, was it? Uh ... Donna?"

"Are you ... kidding me?" Donna gasped breathlessly and managed to pry her white-knuckled hands from the console. She leaned her head back and shook her straight red locks away from her face, trying to settle her racing hearts and find the right words to express how complicated getting it all right was. "It was like trying to ... I dunno ... hop between two moving trains." She straightened her green floral shirt and skirt.

"Piece of cake." The Doctor said spiritedly, whirling to her side. "You've done from a car to the Tardis."  
"This time it was in a tunnel." Donna added as though the first experience hadn't been harrowing enough.  
"Waell ..." The Doctor folded his arms, leaning comfortably against the console. "Does take a bit of practice to get the hang of it, I admit."  
"Wearing a blindfold?" She dug at him.

Donna watched his face sober with a bit more attention to her personally, but there was still that glint of brilliance in his eyes that never failed to melt away Donna's feeling of fear.  
"But you still did it, Donna." He grinned encouragingly at her. "Not much help from me either. First time round not bad at all. Molto Bene. Instinct. Just like your gramps taught you ..."

The positive words of congratulation tumbling from his mouth meant more to Donna for the sound of reassurance they made. If he'd actually been on about talking space fish in that tone of voice it wouldn't have mattered; Donna still would have felt a release of personal pressure.

* * *

It had been easy enough to think about how the Tardis operated but it'd been hard work when it came to do even just the bare bones of the rematerialization procedure. Bless the Doctor's golden hearts; there wasn't a single critical word on Donna's serious lack of attitude adjustments. The Doctor wasn't flogging the fact of how extra bumpy the ride was in the slightest. He just loved the fact she'd had enough guts to have a go at flying and follow it right through the landing procedure.

At length the Doctor gestured to the external monitor screen. "So! Here we are safe and sound ... Wherever that is, um ... where do you suppose we are ... Donna?"  
Donna looked from the view of a corridor outside back to the Doctor with his eyes fully on hers and his mouth open in a mock of bewilderment. The kind of look he was giving her really matched his spiked up hair. Donna could tell the Doctor was playing with her because he had his tongue pressed up to the roof of his mouth and his eyes were sparkling with merriment.

"What? Me? You serious?"  
"Why not?" The Doctor grinned gamely at her and leaned with his back against the console again. "Go on then, you've got all that 'Time Lord knowledge' in your head now." He stared challengingly at her with glittering eyes. 'Discovery' was his most favourite game in the whole universe and he was sharing it with his best friend. "Now's as good a time as any to put it to good use."

"Okay!" Donna breathed, trying to calm herself from another bubble of excitement so she could think straight. "Let's see." She moved around the console, taking in the readings. The first thing she picked to look at was the environmental readout. "It's a ship, radiation reads normal, no signs of toxic chemicals so I'd say by the atmospheric reading the people here are going to be like us. I'd suppose they're gonna be upright like us too ... possibly humanoid."

"What; you can tell that by reading the atmosphere?" The Doctor asked in surprise.  
"No, you prawn, the corridor on the screen!" Donna answered with a laugh. "Ceiling's not too low or high, and the corridor's not too narrow neither."  
"Oh. Good work." He admitted with a slight blush, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Thanks." Donna giggled and looked at the next reading. "So narrowing it down to humanoids ... the metallurgy of the nearest bulkhead is impure which makes me think possibly colonists built it. I mean I reckon a big old empire would have better metal refineries than what they got out there, yeah?"  
The Doctor shrugged and declined to comment. "It's your deduction."

Then Donna moved on to the astro-chronometric readout screen. All at once she found herself pressing her fingers to her forehead. All the digital circles and alphanumerical inscriptions turning three dimensionally around on the screen made her head spin trying to figure out what they all meant. "Um ..." The Gallifreyan written word honestly did look familiar but it was still a new language to her English trained brain. What did make sense to Donna was the layout however: 'relative distance to' had a specific position and so did 'large gravitational object'. As for the time part, the circles had a suspicious look to them and that was it for Donna's 'I'm suddenly a Time Lord now' deductions.

"If I'm reading this correctly," She pointed to the various items in the layout as she'd figured them; "the nearest planet is one metre away and the year is thirty thousand million." She then pointed at a particularly funky looking conjugation of letters that she didn't have the foggiest about. "Also there's a full moon going on and it says here we should probably bring our wellies." Donna added the extra touch of the ridiculous just to emphasis how much she was struggling with. She crossed her arms and matter-of-factly turned back to the Doctor.

The Doctor erupted into a quiet fit of laughter.  
"What ... are you laughing at me?" Donna tried to keep a straight face herself but she still felt herself blushing.  
"No, not at all." He snorted. "Sorry." He cleared his throat.  
"Oh, go on with you." Donna prodded humorously and gestured to the foreign language on the screen. Given time and a really large hammer, which she planned on getting, Donna would crack this macadamia nut. "So where are we really then, spaceman?"

"Oh ..." The Doctor headed around the console with his hands in his pockets. "Ship. Probably a civilian space freighter. Most likely humanoid ..." he waved vaguely at the view screen, "and somewhere around the ..." He looked at the screen with all the Gallifreyan letters, numbers and circles spinning around on it. "Ah, Exxilon, excellent. Well, we're heading away from Exxilon. Which is excellent. Always a good thing; that bit." The Doctor headed off from the console and leisurely picked up his brown leather jacket on the way to the external doors. "Escape from Exxilon," he twisted around to face Donna, still walking backwards towards the doors, "that has a ring to it. Someone should write a book about it."

"I got a bit about Exxilon in my head." Donna followed him to the door. "So you reckon it's a mining expedition then?" Donna reasoned as she caught up with him.  
The Doctor held out his hand for her with a cheeky smile. "Let's find out, shall we? 'Spacegirl'?"  
"What'd you just call me?" Donna's jaw dropped.  
"Well, it's only fair." He pouted. "You did just land the Tardis all by yourself and not to mention accurately negotiate a couple rough turns in the vortex earlier."  
"Yeah, I kinda did, didn't I?" Donna grinned back at him actually feeling pretty good about her recent achievement.

Hand in hand, they headed out into the alien ship beyond.


	2. Ignore the Rats

**Part Two: Ignore the Rats**

* * *

_The Illinate merchant space freighter flew on through the silent depths of space. The dual engines positioned at the front made the ship look like an inverted arrow in the galactic darkness; pointing to where it had come from._

* * *

There were six desk-shaped computer workstations in the bridge control room arranged in front of the giant star studded view screen. A middle-aged woman with dull brown hair sat alone at the front left hand workstation.

The door at the back of the room opened and a man stepped up to her side. His navy coloured vest hung open at the front showing off his light blue shirt and open collar.

"Captain."  
Sadie Jones twisted her chair away from her station to face her first officer now standing beside her. She folded her white sleeved arms over her zipped up green vest and eyed him critically. It was a silent moment as first officer and captain frowned at each other.

Sadie had never seen Matthew Pitt without a four-day stubble and his inches long chocolate brown hair always had that slightly untidy look only achievable with a rake through of fingers instead of a comb. At least his mother had taught him how to wash himself properly, Sadie accepted, because there was a distinct scent of Glory Marina in the recycled air whenever he was around. Of all the fragrant soaps they had on board, and of all the people from the colony to apply for the position of first officer, Sadie would have to have the exact combination of smell and character that would make her head fuzzy.

"So it's gone again then, Bro Mat." Sadie interpreted his frown. With a sigh, she sat back in her chair and brushed a bit of hair that had escaped from her up-do back from her face. He was seeing things.  
"Please don't look at me like that, captain." Matthew complained. "I assure you it's a legitimate issue. An intermittent sensor reading can't just come from nowhere."  
"It can if your sensors are ghosting." Sadie countered and sat back in her chair. She was reaching middle age but these last few days she'd been feeling more and more like the unfortunate teenager she'd been in high school. Days like today when her skin prickled as though something or someone was watching her. Hunting her. Someone who thought they were smarter.

"If you're that bored go ahead and recalibrate your sensors."  
"I am not bored, captain."  
"Brother Matthew!" She stressed the old-fashioned length of his name, "Maybe you are so bored that you're imagining the sensor reading in the first place!" Sadie stated bluntly. "A ship like this? A person in the eighty-percentile range? Surely you must be feeling lonely."  
"I'm low eighties." He objected. "And I should say that I quite enjoy the crew's company."

"You barely converse with them I've noticed."  
"I like not being bothered and they respect that." He gestured to the big projection screen in front of the room. The starscape was slowly shifting as the ship charged onwards home, the picture of Exxilon and her sun gradually getting smaller. "Peace and quiet is not a luxury afforded in most other professions."

"Even you can get too much luxury, Bro Mat." Sadie continued to bristle. "If you really wanted to be left alone, you wouldn't be-."

* * *

The door opened and Sadie glanced back to the door to see the arrival of the ship's logistics coordinator wearing her favourite red vest. The captain turned back to her console, "Oh, Tonia" Sadie sighed wearily and rubbed her face. "I'm having a bad day." There was a creeping feeling at the back of Sadie's neck and it wasn't either of her colleague's faults.

At least Tonia had saved Sadie from her own temper tantrum. "I'm sorry for my ill-humour, Bro Mat. Of course you're not making it up just for the attention."  
"Attention!" Matthew repeated quietly, reeling back a step, appalled at the notion. "The less of that the better." He moved over to sit at the bridge's sensor station and was silent working at his problem.

"Ma'am." Midshiper Tonia Booth's young face and straight blonde hair practically glowed in the up-lights. At the time when Sadie had been picking her crew, Tonia had barely scraped through on the minimum age level even though she'd been the most intelligent candidate for the job.

"Thank you, Tonia." Sadie took the electronic text recorder and glanced through the statistics graphs.  
"So far we haven't located the power bleed I told you about yesterday but conduit junction 52 looks promising. I'm planning on looking there after lunch."  
"Maybe you'd like to take Bro Mat here with you." Sadie nodded to Matthew pondering incessantly over his mystery blip. "He sees things most people miss."

Sadie skimmed down the report. "Speaking of blips what's going on with the motion detector sweep?"  
"Oh, that reminds me." Tonia shrugged uncomfortably. "Some of the maintenance crew have been reporting rat sightings."  
"Rats!" Sadie exclaimed.  
"Yes, ma'am, and the crew working down there are getting a bit jumpy about it. What should I tell them?"

"By the gods this is horrible!" Sadie felt her hands growing sweaty. The eerie feeling creeping up on her all week now had a cause. "You can tell the crew to leave them the well alone and get on with their jobs!" Sadie said emphatically. "That's what!"

"Wait a moment." Matthew interrupted. "How could rats suddenly be on board?"  
"They must've come up from Exxilon." Tonia supposed, "We were scrounging around those ruins for a great long time."

"Ignore the blessed rats!" Sadie commanded tersely, "they don't exist. Do you hear me? There were no rats when we loaded the cargo in; the crew on the mining teams would have reported it. Tonia, tell the maintenance crew they're probably imagining things. Have them check in with the med-bay for space sickness treatment. That's all it is," Sadie reasoned, trying to calm herself, "we've all been in space a bit too long, that's all. Some of us are tired, getting irritable. Some of us are bored." Sadie shot Matthew a knowing look. "And if at the end of the day there really are rats ..."

Sadie took a breath and acknowledged both the creeping feeling at the back of her neck and the motion-detector sweep results. "There will still be no rat hunts. Not-on-my-ship!" Sadie commanded loudly.  
"Yes, ma'am." Tonia cowered. "I'll tell them at once."

Tonia hurried out of the bridge. Sadie stared at the spot that Tonia had been taking up.

"Perhaps you were being a bit harsh on the child, captain? She was only giving her report after all."  
"I don't care at this stage, Bro Mat." Sadie looked back to her console and changed settings to security review. The picture on the large view screen ahead of them flicked over to the security channel at her command. Sadie felt an irrational fear that there might suddenly be rats carpeting the deck plating and had to resolve it immediately. "I will not have anarchy on my ship." A quick visual scan of the checkerboard of pictures said her fear was unfounded.

"We are an evolved species." She concluded. But whatever the claim Sadie made it didn't stop the fact that the rats had been bothering her before she'd even known about them.

* * *

Together Matthew and Sadie mutely watched the scattering of images from across the ship. Sadie found it calming to see her ship peaceful and well-maintained.

"What's that over in grid 9A?" Matthew broke the silence. "A failed light?"

Sadie looked over at the picture of a slightly dark spot along the corridor. "That's the service junction outside the gym. There were no flickering lights this morning ..." She frowned. "The crew would have been talking about it at breakfast."

From Matthew's seat at the sensor console, he switched channels to the internal sensor sweep and shared it to the bridge's main view screen. A basic black background with yellow grid outlines replaced the checkered photographic view. It depicted the fitness deck with all its three-dimensional corridors and rooms before zeroing in on grid 9A which was the service junction and the corridor leading off to the door of the main exercise room.

"It's a temporal distortion bubble just outside of camera range." Matthew reported. "It's settled now."  
"A-excuse me a what?" Sadie blinked.  
"I mean for a minute there was a localized space-time anomaly. It seems to have settled down now." He widened the detection range of the nearest surveillance cameras onto the anomalous zone, scanning echolocation.

In stunned silence, Sadie watched the map of grid 9A on the screen update to show that something with the basic geometric proclamation of a rectangular prism was standing blocking the service junction off the corridor. It definitely had not been there when she'd walked down that corridor for her morning exercise class.

"It's an escape pod." Sadie gasped. "A temporal escape pod."  
"Escape?" Matthew mused. "That heralds the question of where they may have escaped from."  
"And when did they escape?" Sadie smiled. Clearly, this was going to be a stellar distraction. What crewmember could care about rats when they could mentally engage with real live time-travelling aliens?

"Captain." Sadie turned to see Matthew gazing at her. "That's the first time I've seen you smile in months."  
"Oh, enough of that, Matthew." Sadie blushed furiously. "Just go knock on the pod."  
"I should first check the atmospheric conditions inside the pod first. They may need humidifier equipment or some such things ..."

Sadie gazed at the prismatic pod on the grid view. "I'll do your sensor readings for you, Matthew, for now just go say 'hello'!"


	3. An Illinate Welcome

_A/n: Zero passive sentences! Yay! I'm not sure if it makes sense anymore but still: Yay!_

* * *

**Part Three: An Illinate Welcome**

* * *

Donna and the Doctor walked a few metres down the corridor. The doors they came to looked exactly like lift doors with a dull metal sheen. They slid open disappearing into the wall at either side just as plain ordinary lift doors did. The familiarity struck Donna so much that stepping into a giant exercise gym instead of an actual lift was a surprise. They took a few steps in.

"Hallo, is there anybody in here?" Donna called out, peering around at the ghostly gym. "Blimey." She muttered, hearing her voice echo back at her.  
"Nobody but us chickens, apparently. I wonder where that saying comes from. Hallo, here's a particularly torturous looking contraption." The Doctor crossed over to a weights machine, still rambling aloud. "Chickens, chickens. Why chickens? It's a very complicated pulley system but it's deadlocked. Why not frogs or geese? For that matter why use a deadlock?"  
"Oh, you just shift the bit in the weight stacks. I guess chickens get startled and run off a bit more easily than the other lot." Donna answered briefly and continued looking around the room.

"Of course you'd need to exercise when you're in space flight. The gravity's like ... fifty percent of Earth's ..."  
"Probably not chickens then. It's actually forty two percent of Earth's gravity." The Doctor corrected blandly over the sound of his sonic inspection of the weights machine.  
"Nice to see you've mellowed in your old age, Doctor." Donna called back loudly in retort.  
"Humans work on approximations. Time Lords are much more exact."  
Donna rolled her eyes. "I'll leave you to do all the anti-apocalyptic calculations then."

The Doctor stopped the sonic, glancing up at her. "Nonsense, Donna, I couldn't get along without your help." Then he returned to his sonicking of the weights unit.  
Donna smiled with warmth. The fond acknowledgement magnetically drew her back to the Doctor's side. She just so wanted to hug him right now but she was also wondering what it was that had him fascinated about the resistance training unit.

"You do know they have these sorts of things in the twenty first century back on Earth, right?" Donna moved over to the weights stack and adjusted it to two bars instead of ten. "See?" She moved around and pulled down on the handles. She lowered the weights back down to the stack and let go of the handles. "How many ships you been crawling around in and you never saw one of these?"  
The Doctor looked from the stack back to Donna. "I suppose I ... may have glanced at one before?" He shrugged in confusion. "I dunno why, it just feels odd ... somehow. You don't think so, Donna?"

Donna regarded the contraption again and then looked back at him. "I really don't think so." She answered in a kind voice.  
The Doctor let out a breath. "Well ... okay." He shrugged uncomfortably and moved off.  
Donna could practically see the spooked feeling on him like an all-new shade of blue. She glanced back at the exercise machine. Was it out of place or something? She'd never seen a space gym before so she wasn't exactly an expert!

The door knocked and Donna sprinted to the Doctor's side, grabbing for his hand.  
"You alright?" He asked.  
"Oh, you know, 'us chickens' gotta stick together." Donna hissed nervously, feeling the hair sticking up at the back of her neck.

"No, Donna, we're not chickens." He answered her seriously. "Look at us."  
"Right, deer caught in headlights it is then." She quirked in return.

* * *

The door opened and Donna found her worry unfounded. The man who stepped cautiously in through the door was perfectly humanoid. She wouldn't count on it but he actually looked entirely human.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor, this is Donna." The Doctor greeted the man cheerily.

"Aliens, real live aliens!" The man remarked in the sort of cerebral gentleness that Donna couldn't find in the least bit scary. "But you look like Illinate."  
"Illinate?" The Doctor repeated in confusion. Donna tried searching her brain but the name didn't jump out at her either.  
"Like us." The man didn't step closer. "That's ... remarkable." The man sighed in amazement. "Actually a bit of a relief, really."  
"I'm sorry," The Doctor prompted, "I didn't ... catch your name?"  
"First officer. Matthew Pitt. You don't seem injured."  
"Injured?"  
"Well, your escape pod. I thought perhaps you might be injured by whatever it was you were escaping from."

"I ... we ... no!" The Doctor exclaimed, "That's my ship."  
"Your ship? Your whole ship? In addition, it appears to accommodate the both of you. But surely the engine must be massive in order to move about by way of time anomalies?"  
"It's ... yeah, kinda." The doctor admitted.  
"Moreover, it must warp space as well if the engine is so large. The cabin is surely not such a tight space as it appears or you would be as far away from each other as possible right now but, in fact, the opposite is true. If you two were any closer, I would question the social decency of my presence."

Slightly affronted Donna quickly dropped the Doctor's hand and stepped a little off from him. Aliens might think anything of holding hands.  
"Illinate." The Doctor repeated, "I ... blimey right at the back of my head; your species, I wonder why?"  
"We largely keep to our own." Matthew answered, "Are you violent creatures?"  
"We're peaceful." Donna insisted. It was funny those things went hand in hand in Matthew's head. It probably meant he was peaceful too since a violent creature probably wouldn't be bothered about asking. A glad smile spread across Donna's face. That meant getting along together ought to be easy enough. She liked these Illinate people already.

"You can scan us and see we're not armed." The Doctor offered.  
"That wasn't my question, Doctor, and the captain has been scanning you ... tell me what was that device you were using earlier?"  
The Doctor gently pulled it back out from his breast pocket. "Screwdriver. Sonic. Sonic screwdriver." He twirled it in his fingers. "Why does it seem like I've met you before? I don't know."

"Well, I'm sure I've never met you, Doctor, and as it so happens it is my excellent fortune to have never had need of any sort of doctor ... are you escaping from the plague?"  
"If we were, we'd have come to the right place. Since you're on your way from Exxilon I'm sure you've got the cure in your hold." The Doctor asserted. "Am I right?"  
"That's true. How else to make a living other than to supply for a demand? It makes life so satisfying for people to need you, or so the story goes on board this ship. We are all very happy with our purpose."

Matthew stared at them. "Doctor, Donna. Perhaps you would care for some refreshment; it is lunchtime. The crew would be positively delighted to meet some ... peaceful ... aliens. I really can't keep you all to myself for too much longer at any rate." Matthew smiled. "That wouldn't be fair in the least to the others."

"That'd be nice." Donna agreed, smiling back at Matthew.

The ship's first officer Matthew Pitt led Donna and the Doctor out of the gym.


	4. Gawk

**Gawk**

* * *

The Doctor walked on beside Donna through the ship's tan coloured corridors. A whole range of possibilities of who the Illinate people could be was running through his head but nothing was connecting yet.

As for Matthew as an individual the Doctor could tell he was clever. At the speed that he'd picked up the pieces about the Tardis, Matthew quite possibly had above human intelligence. Matthew had already guessed just from looking that the Tardis could warp time as well as space and he'd guessed it was bigger on the inside. Meanwhile the mystery seemed to revolve around that word 'Illinate' that Matthew had used. The Tardis' telepathic translation circuit had not changed the word to 'humanoid'. Apparently, the Tardis knew what Illinates were, the Doctor mused, and whatever they were, they weren't humanoid.

The Doctor glanced at Donna's face framed by her rich red hair as she walked quietly beside him. The humanoid-because-of-the-size-of-the-corridors guess couldn't be too far off, could it? Matthew did look human enough. Then again, their captain had scanned the Doctor and Donna. The Illinates could possess some sort of morph generating unit to make them appear like their visitors, but then why should anyone cater that much for unexpected guests? In addition, that didn't explain how the ship catered for humanoids.

The one conclusive thought the Doctor had was that as far as the history of the universe was concerned the Illinate didn't figure too greatly or they would've jumped out at him rather than niggling away at the back of his head.

"You noticed the odd minty green stripe, Donna?" The Doctor said quietly, eyeing it as it continued to run along the wall at about waist height. It was now a hand span wide.  
"Yeah, it keeps changing width." Donna stated.  
Matthew up ahead paused, "if you ever get turned about." He gestured calmly, "The ribbon widens to the end. How do your people usually know how long a corridor is, or in which way they're headed?"  
"The odd sign." Donna answered. "Written words, descriptive pictures and arrows."  
"Gotta love arrows." The Doctor smirked, "and that big friendly glow-in-the-dark sign ... you know that one, Donna?"  
"Phew, tough call, Doctor. Y'mean the green one that says 'EXIT'?" Donna's eyes sparkled in good humour, "or the one that says 'Police Box - Public Use'?"  
"Waell, y'got a point there." The Doctor larked fondly back at her and grabbed her hand.

* * *

They stepped through the final bi-sliding door of the deck and into the lift. When the lift started, Donna clutched the Doctor's arm for support.

"Whoa, you alright?" He steadied her.  
Donna made an unintelligible sound but eased up her hold. "Didn't expect that." She muttered tensely. "Can't tell. All the doors look like lift doors and we already been through half a dozen."  
"Emergency bulkheads." The Doctor answered. "They're designed to hold the air in if they have to."  
"Nice to know they won't open out onto open space on us." Donna breathed.

"Do they do that for the air ducts in the roof as well?" She asked Matthew.  
"The life support systems have local sensors that override the remote control," Matthew answered. He pointed to the round sensor above the door. They shut down the local operating system if they detect that the environment is turning toxic like a radiation leak or inhospitable temperature."  
"How fast does that kick in?" The Doctor asked in concern.  
"Not quite as fast as panic." Matthew assured him. "At any rate now the ship is in open space and up to maximum velocity so the biggest entertainment for most of the crew is the maintenance checks. Actually, Tonia has a puzzle she can tell you about if you ask. She's been hunting down the cause of a slight drop in the power grid."  
"Thanks, I think I'll do that."

* * *

"Aren't we gonna see the captain or something?" Donna asked quietly as they continued along the new deck, "I mean isn't that normal procedure?"  
"Well, I don't know who invented that procedure but it's not terribly necessary ..." Matthew shrugged, "I don't know, the captain just told me to greet you ..." Matthew was confused. "And left me to invent the rest. I'm sure the moment she wants to meet with you she'll say something about it. Meanwhile here is the mess hall." Matthew bowed slightly to them and the doors slid open to the detection of their motion.

The sight of the room beyond made the Doctor smile. The vaulted ceiling took up the extra space normally afforded to the air ducting conduits. The room was hexagonal and featured very human styled cafeteria tables and chairs in the centre and a self-service bay Marie at one side just as if it'd stepped out of a human cafeteria. The very human-looking people in the centre were busy eating and there was the distinct aroma of a mix-n-match of Italian and Hungarian in the air. "That's lovely." He smiled and turned to Donna. "What'd'ya reckon, eh?"  
Donna shrugged with a content smile. "Feels a bit like home." She answered. "Minus the shops."

Matthew cleared his throat. "Everyone, I'd just like to introduce you to our visitors. This is the Donna and the Doctor. They're 'aliens'." He added in a delighted tone as though the idea of not being alone in the universe was the most exciting thing in the universe. "They use different technology and they've visited different places to us. They're explorers and they're curious about our way of life so please feel free to talk to them."

The Doctor turned his stunned gaze onto Matthew. "Now that's very clever."  
"Is that not true, Doctor?"  
"Yes, it is." He smiled broadly at the Illinate first officer. "Every bit."  
Matthew nodded his head in polite deference and walked off, leaving a small group of Illinates standing in front gaping at the Doctor with eyes glittering with excitement.

_"The Doctor."_  
_"Come, sit down with us."_  
_"You must be hungry."_  
_"I'll get it."_

A moment later the bewildered Doctor found himself sitting in a chair with a plate of food whisked down in front of him. "Um, thank-."  
_"Alien, can you believe it?"_  
_"If Bro Mat says so it must be."_  
_"Well, that's not the point I mean ..."_

The Doctor really wasn't comfortable being gawked at especially this level of extreme. He looked over at Donna. Her mouth seemed to be working. She was smiling and also still standing up which the Doctor decided was a pretty impressive feat. 'Clever Donna.' He thought fondly and turned back to the crowd of faces around him. This was a bit useless, uncomfortable and cor blimey but they were all women to boot. He needed an idea to get him out of this. Pity he didn't have a bit of rope and a grappling iron. He did have a can of WD-40 in one of his pockets but he hoped to get by without stooping to that level of extreme until it was an actual emergency.

"Does anyone know where Tonia is? I'd like to meet her."

It worked like a treat. The Illinates stopped looking at him and started looking around for their crewmate. In addition, she wasn't in this lot, which was a relief to him.  
"Tonia!" One of them waved offside and the Doctor hoped life was going to improve so long as he could continue to draw the focus away from himself.

A bit less crowded in and the Doctor felt a bit calmer. He was able to think about the aromatic smell of the food at his fingers. Picking up a shallow fork, he took a small bite. There was definitely meat in it, his taste buds told him. He swallowed. No wonder it had so much spices in it, he realised, because there was the distinct after-taste of deep freeze. Yep, space food. He was really not that hungry.

"Hello, you must be Tonia I take it." He smiled at who had to be the youngest Illinate he'd seen so far. The Doctor put down his fork and pushed the food a bit to the side. He leaned forward on his elbows on the table to take a bit more of her in. Tonia's hair was gold like some of the others, but unlike the other women, she was wearing it down. Her vest was red and overall she was the only one in the room that dressed as if she didn't mind people noticing her.

"How do you know my name?" Tonia looked at him with a bewildered look on her face.  
"Matthew mentioned you were trying to unravel a puzzle."  
"Oh!" Tonia's fretful look cleared up instantly and a bright smile replaced it. The Doctor wondered how a young girl could end up on a long haul freight trip like this. "Yes, there's a power leak. I think I've tracked it finally down, though." She nodded. "I was just going to have a look after lunch. I think the source of the power drain is in one of the conduits outside cargo bay two."  
"Well, it seems like you know what you're doing." The Doctor shrugged. "Still, I'd love to take a look with you. I mean, what's causing it, eh? A ship this tidy and something not quite right? How unlikely is that?"

Tonia blinked rapidly for a moment. "Wow, you really are curious."  
The Doctor gazed at her. "Absolutely." He smiled, glancing around at the people and finally caught sight of an exit, "Wanna go have a look now?"  
Tonia raised her eyebrows. "Sure."  
"Do you mind if I ask my friend if she'd like to come along?"  
Tonia smiled, "of course not."

The Doctor stood up and headed towards Donna. At this moment, she was standing against the wall talking with Matthew.

"... I could certainly show you." Matthew finished.  
"Hi, sorry." The Doctor smiled at them. "Donna, apparently there's a power leak in one of the conduits near one of the cargo bays. You wanna come with Tonia and me and check it out?"  
Donna glanced at Tonia and then back to Matthew. The Doctor could see the lengthy debate going on in her head mostly given away from the extra pause and the way she caught her bottom lip between her teeth. "I think I'll pass this time, thanks." She gave him a smile, taking a second glance at Tonia.

The Doctor took a second glance at Tonia too. 'What's the matter with Tonia?' He asked Donna silently.  
Apparently she didn't hear his telepathic question. "Go on, have fun." She told him in her generous tone of voice. The Doctor decided whatever it was Donna was thinking about it wasn't serious enough for her to put a spanner in it. He smiled at her.

He trusted her to put a spanner in it if she thought it was serious. "See you later then." He told her cheerily and headed off with Tonia taking the lead.


	5. Makeup

**Makeup**

* * *

All along the way from the gym to the mess hall, Donna marvelled on how human everything looked. It barely even looked like they were on a ship although there were never any windows. Every door they passed through made Donna feel like they were walking into a lift. Clearly these were all designed as 'emergency bulkheads' with their protective metal facade but Donna actually felt a bit unsettled when she stepped through one of these and it turned out to actually be a lift.

The longer Donna was around Matthew the more she could tell that there was certainly something ... non-human about him. If it was his walk that was a bit too delicate for a tough guy or the wild scruffy look that didn't match his gentle guy persona she couldn't tell but there was definitely a hiding game going on with him. If she could figure out which way it was Donna supposed she would have a bit of a lead on who the Illinates were.

* * *

When they finally encountered the other Illinates in the mess hall Donna instantly saw a bunch of close-knit friends. At this point Donna decided anything not human was going to be an extra level of novelty. The Illinate crew was a cheery lot, at least on seeing and speaking with the Doctor and her. Their faces lit up like Christmas had come when she was saying 'hello' and 'it's nice to meet you'.

'They must be so lonely here.' Donna reasoned, her eyes returning to Matthew. He was standing away from the crowd, looking on. Matthew looked the most out of place person of all. He did not fit in and these were his own people. Donna dodged more questions with a tight smile and approached Matthew at the wall keen on finding out why.

"Just curious ... are you the same species as them then?"  
He nodded. "We are all Illinate."

Then it wasn't that setting him apart from the others. His dark scruffy beard and hair made him look a bit like a lone survivor rather than someone that might belong on a well-oiled, tidy and quiet cargo ship. Matthew had clearly been through something before this place but instead of clearing his head of it, the trauma had stuck.

Donna mimicked his stance and slouched against the wall with her arms folded. From here, she had a decent view of everything going on in the room. She noticed the Doctor's attention largely focused on a particularly pretty girl who was talking to him. The young woman and her golden blonde hair reminded Donna of Rose. Donna seriously hoped that the girl didn't remind the Doctor of Rose.

"So what's your story then, Matthew? Get picked on in school?"  
He pulled away from the wall and faced her. His eyes stared at her intensely. "How could you possibly know such a thing as this about me?"  
"I know a bit about reading people. It was either that or the 'once upon a time I crash-landed on a hill occupied with giant carnivorous ants' story." Donna shrugged with a smile. "So go on then; who picked on you? Anyone in this lot do it?"

"No." Matthew almost laughed. "Illinates favour intelligence and here I find myself somewhat more than equal. No. As a child, I had that awkward level of intelligence of not being quite clever enough to understand and not being dull of mind enough to be content with not understanding. I don't suppose you know what that's like, Donna?"

"Yep. Had it just coming here in fact." Donna's eyes fell back on the Doctor. "Come to think of it ... you got Astrometric charts of where we are right now? Exxilon too? That'd be a great reference point." Back on the Tardis, the Doctor had taken one glance at the screen and said 'Exxilon' so Donna considered this was probably a good start.

"I ... I'm sorry, I mean, yes, but ... how does that have anything ..."

Donna watched the Doctor stand up at the same time as the blonde-haired girl. "I was just hoping maybe you could teach me how to read a bit of your language?" Now the Doctor was heading over to Donna.

"Perhaps, I could certainly show you."

"Hi, sorry." The Doctor smiled at them. "Donna, apparently there's a power leak in one of the conduits near one of the cargo bays. You wanna come with Tonia and me and take a look at it?"

Donna glanced at the young girl and then back to Matthew. Donna really wanted to try deciphering those star charts. Anyway, she was usually an idle observer when it came to alien electrical cables. Not to mention that she'd be a third wheel. The Doctor certainly didn't need two idle observers holding up bits of wire for him. On the other side of it, talking a bit more with the estranged Matthew had a bit more of a useful ring to it in Donna's way of thinking.

"I think I'll pass this time, thanks." She gave him a smile, glancing again at Tonia. Why the heck did every blonde-haired girl look like Rose Tyler? Perhaps Donna was just hallucinating the duplication. "Go on, have fun."

"... See you later then." He told her cheerily and dashed off.

"Shall I show you the Astrometrics lab, Donna?" Matthew repeated.

"That would be lovely, thanks." Donna smiled.

* * *

Heading up through all the lift doors and not-lift doors Donna wondered a bit about size. Inside the Tardis, the corridors sprawled, opening up on room after room, tennis court, hydroponics garden, and library. While all the while, the street view was a box little more than a couple cubic metres. "How big is this ship on the outside?" She found herself asking.

"Seven hundred thrai." He responded and Donna was now asking her head how to translate that into cubic metres.

"Well, that's precise, thanks." Donna muttered to herself, remembering what the Doctor had said about Time Lords. These sorts of details helped the Doctor figure out if a machine was going to blow up a volcano or the whole planet. According to Donna's sense of logic, however, seven hundred thrai meant nothing unless she had something to compare against it. So saying if that was a fairly typical size for a space freighter wanting to make it worth its long trip that probably meant that seven hundred thrai was roughly about two or three decent apartment blocks in size. It was at this point Donna got bored with the question. As far as she was practically concerned, it was all just a maze of identical tan coloured corridors with a baby pink or baby green or baby blue pin stripe along them. If the lights went out everyone would be lost no matter what the exact size was.

"So after all this is over and you're back at your colony what do you fancy getting up to, Matthew? Maybe get married or something?"  
"I should think it would be another cargo run. But what's curious to me is why of all our crewmembers do you choose me to talk to, Donna?" He asked.  
"I dunno, you just seemed lonely, Matthew."  
"I don't mind it." He answered, turning his head away.

"Well, yeah." Donna rolled her eyes. "Of course you don't mind it; you feel safe on your own because there's no risk of being bullied." She found herself rattling on. "You make yourself look scruffy and wild looking so people don't approach you so much in case they discover you really are as mad as you look. It's plainly a learnt psychological association that you've linked in to your biological defence mechanisms. It's an easy out trading loneliness for heartache. If you're on your own you don't get hurt, do you?"

Matthew gazed at her. "You're suggesting that my mental conditioning is the opposite of my biological nature."

Donna smiled gently back as they kept on walking. "Yep. But you've got to know that not every Illinate is gonna be like that to you. I mean; I basically know nothing about Illinates but I can tell you that much because how else could someone who gets that put down make first officer of anything?" She smiled encouragingly. "So it can't all be doom and gloom when it comes to people. You got here because someone thought you were good enough. And if you like it that much that you wanna do it again then you've sort of got it made, haven't you? It's only a good job if you like it, right?"  
"You are very kind." Matthew blushed and turned away again. "We're nearly there."

There was a moment's thoughtful silence before Matthew at last sighed. "It is a good job."


	6. Cybermats on 52

**Cybermats on 52**

* * *

The Doctor headed out of the lift with Tonia and into a world a bit darker and more like the bowels of a ship. Pipes went from down to up, up to down, around the corner and across the floor. The occasional readout station broke up the view. "Now it feels like a freighter ship." The Doctor smiled to himself and pulled out his sonic.  
"Oh, what's that?"  
"Sonic screwdriver." The Doctor hesitated, "it's a sonic device. See?" He scanned a nearby pipe and interpreted the response. "Mostly duterinium with traces of aluminium. This one's a water pipe heading back up to the ship, so I take it that way is the treatment plant." He pointed at the corner in the direction the pipe was coming from.  
"That's remarkable." The young Illinate woman stated calmly.  
"...'Remarkable'..." The Doctor raised his eyebrows and wandered off in the direction they were heading. "That's Matthew's favourite word, too."  
"Oh, but it is remarkable, Doctor." Tonia followed after him. "I mean, your ability to interpret such high frequency sounds to such a frankly detailed account of matter ... any such matter. It's none of my business at all but I'd really love to have your ears."

"What?" The Doctor twisted around and gaped at her. "My ears?"

"So I could hear sonic signals as well as you can. It's just remarkable."  
"Most people just want the ..." He raised the sonic and flashed it on and off for a split second. He looked at his beloved screwdriver. "Flashy thing."

Tonia giggled, passing him by. "You called it a screwdriver at first. Does that mean you like putting things together with it or taking things apart?"  
The Doctor looked around at the red lit area before they plunged back into a blue lit area. "A bit of both really." He answered, "Take it apart, figure out how it works, put it back together; that sort of thing. It doesn't tell me everything, though. Like you. Young girl, big ship, what made you decide to come all the way out here? You're light years from your family."  
Tonia slowed her walking. "I'm here for the same reason as everyone else. It's a job."  
"Well, yes, but why not ... I dunno ... get a job on a satellite? Then you'd get your weekends off. Settle down, get married."

Tonia shook her head. "It's not as easy as that. They give the best jobs to the smartest people. This job actually pays well but nobody really smart likes it because there's quite a lot of time where you don't do anything interesting." She shrugged. "So I thought I could handle a bit of boredom and then I could use my pay and settle down, just like you said." Tonia looked at him like she'd done something wrong, "doesn't that make sense?"

"Uh, sure." The Doctor answered slightly disappointed. "So it wasn't anything about seeing an alien world or tromping around in the ruins of a once great civilisation or anything? You didn't get a thrill gazing up into an alien sky? None of that then?"  
"Oh." Tonia gave him a community service smile. "You're a romantic. How nice." She turned away and continued walking through another blue lit spot.

"Blimey!" The Doctor blushed. The way Tonia had said that it was like he had some sort of mental problem. "We're clearly very different from each other." He reasoned.

"I suppose it makes sense for a person in your position. Explorers don't make much money in their profession. You'd have to have something else to keep you motivated."  
"Blimey." The Doctor grumbled again, continuing on after her. "All of time and space to choose from and I end up in a cold-blooded economics lecture." He eyed her unhappily, wondering what his hot-blooded Donna who didn't care for economics was investigating without him. Back in the mess hall it certainly had sounded as though she'd wound Matthew up to the task of helping her.

"Here is where the problem is supposed to be." Tonia announced gesturing to a large vertical cylinder pipe to their right. "What's your screwdriver tell you?"  
"It's a sonic." The Doctor corrected flatly and came up to scan the large conduit. It was nearly a metre wide, made of duterinium and aluminium, and the hollow of it was chock full of electrical cabling. There was also an anomalous power reading.

"Something's in there." The Doctor changed settings and ran the sonic around the edges of the chest high square hatch to loosen it. He pocketed it and grabbed the rectangular latch. With a heave he dragged it open. "Now." He turned back to the gaping opening, "let's have a look, eh?" He pulled out the sonic again and from the depths something jumped out at him.

* * *

The Doctor yelped and dropped the sonic to grapple with the thing. It was metal, aggressively alive and had a nasty electric sting.

"Cybermat!" He hurled it onto the floor from him and Tonia pounced on it. "Careful!" The Doctor snapped in warning, getting quickly up onto his knees and snatching his sonic back up from the floor.  
"I've got it." Tonia turned back around. With a large two pronged fork Tonia had skewered the Cybermat. It was now upside-down on the end of her fork, issuing its last dying sparks, and ready for roasting over an open fire.

"What the?" The Doctor felt all his hair standing up on end at this horrific discovery. "Where'd that fork come from?" He exclaimed in shock.  
"I always keep one on me." Tonia answered conversationally. "The rat is made of metal. How peculiar."  
"It's a Cybermat." The Doctor wasn't sure which one to be more afraid of as he got back up on his feet. The Cybermat or Tonia.

On second thoughts Tonia had managed to kill the Cybermat. By the way the sparking had stopped she'd cleanly cut the power lead. This meant that the Doctor just had Tonia to worry about. "Why do you keep a big ... nasty fork on you?" He swallowed.  
Tonia shrugged. "Mother always said 'carry a fork because people can change'. Do you want to scan it, Doctor?" Tonia offered the Cybermat out to the Doctor.

The Doctor veered back, his hearts beginning to speed up with the knowledge of what was coming; what the Cybermat heralded. "Uh, no, no thank you, not at the moment, it might come in handy later but ... I think we'd better take it to your captain first."  
"Why? Is this the ... I mean isn't it the reason the power was disappearing, because the Cybermat got caught in the shaft and was nibbling on the cabling?"  
"No. I mean, yes, that's why the ... whatever!" The Doctor stumbled over repeating her words.

"But unfortunately we've got a much larger problem." He stared at the Cybermat, his hearts pounding now. "Because it's a Cybermat. And where there's Cybermats, the Cybermen are sure to follow!"  
"More aliens?"  
He looked up into Tonia's eyes. She really didn't get it. "It's bad." He gritted, "unbelievably bad. Come on!" He twisted on the spot and raced back to the lift.

Once the lift doors opened the Doctor dashed into the lift and Tonia stepped in breathlessly after him. "Are these aliens really violent then?" She asked, pressing one of the buttons.  
"Yes." He hissed, feeling the lift shifting gravity around. "Very."


	7. Big Black Sensor Ghost

_A/n: Insert morbid existential comment here._

_A/n: My teabag's tag __just told me it's gone on a holiday without me. Thanks, Tetley, now I am feeling weirded out. All I can say to that is 'I hope the teabag got travel insurance because ... slurp'. If there are any sorts of vampires out there I'm the kind that draws the life out of teabags and drinks it down to replenish my own failing energy reserves. This is the last holiday that teabag will ever have. It cannot run. It cannot escape me. The Daffy Duck cup is under my power and will do its master's bidding._

_A/n: At this stage an early bedtime sounds wise ..._

* * *

**Big Black Sensor Ghost**

* * *

"This is the astrometric calculations room." Matthew announced heading towards the metal door halfway along the quiet tan coloured corridor.

Donna stepped in and the sight took her breath away. The room was about six by five metres in size. Down lights provided dim lighting. The glossy sheen of obsidian computer screens covered three of the walls.

"It's beautiful." Donna marvelled, looking around at the shiny black walls and drifting towards the central workstation. It was rectangular and, apart from it having a non-reflective black colour, it looked quite like a rectangular drawing desk with just that bit of an ergonomic slope. This room was the ship's window onto outside space.

There was something missing though. As Donna's eyes settled back on Matthew he had a surprised look on his face. "What?" Donna raised an eyebrow.  
"I haven't turned it on yet."  
All Donna could do was shrug. "Ah, well, you know what 'aliens' are like. What looks ordinary to one lot looks unusual to another lot."

Donna looked over Matthew's shoulder and watched the way that he operated the console. First off the Illinate symbols were definitely alien. The Time Lord part of Donna's head was confusing her with 'that letter is Bessan and that one isn't' and 'the Bessan have no space faring vessels in this time frame'. The only thing Donna could be sure of was that this language was neither Human nor Gallifreyan.

Working the computer itself looked easy enough, though. "Menu based operational system, lovely." Donna commented. Illinate text only had two dimensions of expression, Donna observed. She was certainly getting practice at alien decryption which was exactly what she was staring over Matthew's shoulder for.

"That's the latest scan of the Exxilon system." Matthew took his hands away from the console and Donna looked up at the computer screens. Together they formed a massive star studded picture across the walls with a few slightly larger dots in the centre. She looked down at the numbers and letters on the console. Something was beginning to make sense. Or at least there was a pattern forming between Illinate and Gallifreyan.

Donna had never been the best student in school. That, she decided was probably what was making her life difficult now, that and the fact that they never actually did space maps in twentieth century school anyway ... that probably set her back even more right now. In Donna's earth perspective star charts had nothing to do with going to 'far distant places' unless otherwise specifically alluded to.

There was one thing that struck Donna about the writing at any rate. Illinate language didn't run around in circles. It was the circles that denoted the Gallifreyan time calculations. Donna rubbed her head. "I think I already had that figured out." She groaned at herself. "Come on, Donna, try again." She looked back down at the screen.  
"Are you alright?"  
"Fine, thanks." She answered distractedly.

"There's gotta be something I can match up properly. I'd be happy if I can match just one thing up properly, Matthew ..." Donna found her attention drawn to a small string of characters. They looked as odd as the ones she'd pointed to earlier in the Tardis when she'd joked about the full moon. "These look a bit familiar." She pointed, "What's that say there?"  
"That reads 'Exxilon system'. That's how we write the name of it."  
"Oh!" Donna jumped in excitement. "Brilliant! Place names!"  
"Well, it's one place name."  
"Hey, it's a start! If I can translate one word, that means I can figure out another one. Eventually my head'll translate the whole lot into English for me and I'll know exactly were we've landed. Molto Bene!"  
"Well, I'm very glad to help." Matthew smiled earnestly at her.  
"You bet you've helped, mister, thanks!" Donna grinned at him.

* * *

Matthew turned back to the console, "perhaps you could provide some insight for me as well?"  
"Sure, I can have a go at that."  
Matthew changed the settings on the console and Donna was momentarily looking at a long list of various illegible things. She looked up at the screens around the room and saw a starscape slowly drifting past. It was pretty funky focusing on a star and watching it slide around the room. The clarity of the image was beautiful. "I'd love to see what your cameras look like to manage this." She gazed at the sliding stars.  
"That's the view off the starboard engine." Matthew nodded.

"You ever thought of putting a couple of armchairs in here?"  
He looked even more confused. "Why armchairs?"  
"Comfy chairs." Donna babbled, staring at the stars and thinking of her grandfather up on the hill. "You know; like a window seat? Camp out under the stars with a cuppa? You could have ... I dunno ... window parties? Talk about the universe? ... No?" She saw the increasingly baffled look on his face. "You know what? Forget I said anything. I run off my mouth sometimes." Donna blushed and turned away in embarrassment.  
"I-it's a good idea." Matthew said softly, "but it ... sounds very intimate."  
Donna snorted and made purposefully sure not to look at Matthew as she answered. Instead she focused on the moving star field. "That's up to you. Anyway, you were telling me you had a problem?"

Matthew looked back down at the console readouts. "Drat; it's not there right now."  
"What's not there?" Donna frowned at the view. Something odd was happening in the picture. "That star just went out ..." she searched the screen. Finally saw the star reappear; "there it is back again!" The stars were disappearing behind a big black spot in the picture and arriving at the other side. "Ohmigosh! It's a big-black-opaque-thing! I am travelling through space looking at a big black opaque thing travelling in space with me!" She squeaked, gaping at the picture.

Donna excitedly talked the puzzle through to herself. "Space is black. The thing is black. I suppose black can't be too unusual a colour. I mean, it's not as if there's a sun to light it up like a ... a big white thing instead. So technically it could be any colour and I wouldn't know the difference just looking through a plain lens camera. Come to think of it the 'opaque of an unknown colour' thing could be any size either without some reference point." Donna pressed her palm against her forehead. "Chiswick." She sighed. "It could be a massive nebula a light year away for all that I can tell without a familiar reference point."

Donna turned to Matthew. "How big you reckon it is then? Big like your ship, bigger, smaller?"  
"Me? Er, this ship?" Matthew gaped at her wide-eyed. "I ... I'm sorry ... you've lost me. What ... is this that you're talking about?"  
Donna was just as confused as he was now. "Okay, sorry. I must've got myself carried away a bit back there. I do that. It's a thing. Picked up. Bad habit. Anyway!" Donna interrupted her babbling again.

* * *

"Let's start at the beginning again. You said: It's not there. So then I ask: What's not there? And you answer ...?"  
"The captain calls it a sensor ghost." Matthew stated in a rather disappointed voice. "It's an odd reading that keeps popping up and then disappearing."  
"Like the feedback the solar comparator gets sometimes?" Donna asked.  
"I'm not sure what a comparator is but it is sort of like a feedback signal."

After Donna woke up in the Tardis that morning in a gutsy 'seize the day' mood she'd quickly discovered a healthy appreciation for 'odd readings'. By ignoring these warning signs while operating in the time vortex the Tardis could potentially collide with who-knows-what.

"So, a list of causes for odd readings, yeah? What about recalibrations? Recalibrations of something would cause odd readings. What needs regular recalibration on your ship when you're travelling in ordinary space time like this?" Donna asked.  
"Well ... our velocity has reached maximum so now the biggest thing is the deflectors."  
Donna scratched her head. "What's a deflector do?" She found herself asking and then answering herself, "so, these deflector things are what you need so your ship doesn't get trashed by Z radiation, yeah?"  
"Yes and space particles up to fifteen hundred W.E.D. totality."  
"Meaning whenever something a bit larger hits they take a bit more of a blow and it knocks them a bit silly. Which is why you need to recalibrate! And the last time you recalibrated your big old deflectors was the last time you saw the sensors bleep, yeah?"

"Yes, it's a fairly regular ..." Matthew's eyes opened wide. "Coincidence."  
"It's a 'coincidence'?" Donna repeated incredulously. "The only coincidence is me and the Doctor turning up at almost the same time and since we go turning up in a lot of places that's just a matter of statistical probability so statistically that's not a coincidence either."

Donna eyed the console. "Can we tweak the pickup on this thing?" She wanted to see if she could pull a bit more of that shadow ship into the light. Donna found the settings menu and began fiddling with them. "So how long has it been ghosting you for?"  
"Nearly a week now ... Donna, if you can't read our language how do you know what you're doing?"  
"Nope, you're perfectly right: I haven't the foggiest what I'm doing but since it's all run by menus then there's also a reset button somewhere that you can use anyway." She replied with a lark, "hang on a minute, I think I got something going. That thing's got readings now. It's not just a big black spot." She glanced up. "Hello, it's a big orange spot. Well, looks a bit like a ship now. At least it doesn't blend into the background."  
"And you saw this. You are remarkable, Donna."  
"Fresh pair of eyes, that's all I am." Donna blushed.

* * *

"What's the readings say now? Go on." Donna deflected.  
Matthew returned his attention to the console at his fingertips. "Massive chemical electrical activity ... It is definitely a ship, but it doesn't look alive."  
"Can't be. That doesn't make sense. Dead things don't just suddenly pop out of nowhere and start following people around. Well ..." Donna hesitated. The Time Lord information in her head flooding her mind with contradictory examples to her statement, "not out in the middle of space anyway. Not without the aide of something living at any rate."

Matthew took over the controls and moved a couple more settings. Momentarily he looked up at Donna again. "There are definitely no life readings."  
"Okay, but it still can't be a dead ship and do all that. So what else goes around space without life readings then?" Yet again Donna mentally asked her head to unlock the Time Lord data. "Let's see. There are no life forms on board that ship. But it's following us. There are not too many things in the universe that can do that. Well, okay maybe there are, but ..." Her voice trailed.

Images of metal soldiers started filling her mind up. Insights of where they came from, various points along their evolutionary history, their final conclusion in the far distant future of this time period from this temporal reference point. "No, oh no!" Donna felt a surge of panic and grabbed Matthew by the arms. "We need to find the Doctor, quick."  
"Why?"  
"Because Cybermen don't have curiosity circuits, that's why! Come on!"


	8. Analysis Complete

_A/n: Tonight's teabag told me not to disturb it because it was de-stressing. The knowledge of the demise of last night's teabag must have spread through the box. Why else would it be feeling so distressed? Poor, tortured teabag. Let me drink away your troubles. _

_A/n: We could speculate for hours on Cybermen. But in the end it still comes down to how bad the author is at writing antagonists. And I admit I am. Really, really bad at this._

* * *

**Analysis Complete**

* * *

_Neither the ship's Cyber-Controller nor his bridge team cared how or why the Illinate vessel suddenly had two new life forms. Two extra aliens did not change the reason that the Cybership was on this mission, nor did they impact the function of the Cybership. So they simply sent down the hourly ship scan report to the science sub-control station._

* * *

Below decks the science mission's Team Leader received the bridge's report at his hexagonal console. On initial review he largely didn't care how or why there were two new life forms aboard the Illinate vessel either. The newcomers did not change the reason that his team was on this mission. What did concern the Team Leader, however, was that the circumstances within the scope of the mission may have altered slightly. More data would certainly allow for a more correct response.

"The species of the two additional life forms is unidentified." The ship to ship scans were thrifty at avoiding detection but too brief for the luxurious question the Team Leader wanted an answer for. "This is inconvenient."  
His First Assistant, working on the opposite side of the console from him, offered a suggestion. "The Cybermats could assess these new individuals."

"The possibility is there." The Team Leader responded plainly, "But the Cybermats' range is limited. Getting sufficiently close enough to the new specimens will take an indeterminate amount of time. As you are aware the time we have for this mission is finite, First Assistant." He turned his head back down to bring the reports on the console's readout screens back into his sight range. "We will have to make do with what we get."

"This."

Team Leader looked up at his First Assistant when the rest of the sentence didn't eventuate. "Explain."  
"That." First Assistant stopped again.  
"That?" Team Leader prompted.  
First Assistant lost the thread again and returned to her data report analysis.

Team Leader tried to understand if there was some faulty emotion interfering with her normal operating processes. "It is normal procedure to take the best available option." Team Leader paused. "Do you disagree?"  
"No, Team Leader." First Assistant answered neutrally.  
This caught a spark of curiosity. "That is an insufficient answer. You will explain your opinion."  
First Assistant stared at him. "All options are proving negative." She at last answered.  
"Do not be discouraged; our mission is not yet complete." Team Leader countered serenely. "Continue your analysis of the Cybermat scans."

"Yes, Team Leader."  
The Team Leader regarded his First Assistant for a moment as she returned to her work. She only recently received her upgrade. This fact was a disadvantage. A very unfortunate disadvantage indeed since she was the replacement for his last First Assistant and it didn't look like there would be an opportunity for a further replacement for some time.

* * *

It was a short while later when on the other side of the console First Assistant's computer blipped. Distracted by the idea of an even further complication in their plans the Team Leader straightened and put aside his thoughts of false and failing options.

"Team Leader." First Assistant took a half step back from the console. "One of the Cybermats has just been destroyed."  
"Destroyed?" Team Leader repeated, letting this update settle in his mind. "What was the final data from the Cybermat before it met its destruction?"

"It was one of the newcomers." First Assistant brought the last televised image from the Cybermat up onto the holo-projector in the centre of the console. "Male, humanoid. Not Illinate." She reported.  
"Excellent; this shows promise." Team Leader rationalised, "what information was it able to obtain on him?"

First Assistant moved back to the console and her robotic fingers flew over the controls.

"First Assistant." Team Leader felt a spark of annoyance at this imperfection in his underling's work performance. "You must always obtain the full quantity of data available before you make a report."  
"Apologies." First Assistant straightened. "Historical databanks register that he is a Time Lord. The Doctor."

"Oh." The Team Leader sounded. "That's rather disappointing." He decided mildly. "All historical information indicates that the Doctor is not salvageable." He thought some more. "Additionally, our analysis of the Illinates has reached a premature close."

"Team Leader our analysis is not yet complete."

"We no longer have the time to complete it, First Assistant." Team Leader turned to Second Assistant standing mutely at the door. "Second Assistant. Ready the preliminary group. Inform them that they must move quickly to ensure they secure their objective and sterilise the majority of the Illinate crew."

"Yes, Team Leader."

Team Leader watched Second Assistant depart and acknowledged that he was a recent upgrade as well. This was a disadvantage. It was a very unfortunate disadvantage indeed. Team Leader returned his attention to First Assistant, recalling her one worded arguments. The evidence was conclusive and the practical solution couldn't be simpler. It was the best option available.

"We must have that cargo."

"Team Leader." First Assistant interrupted. "The purpose of our surveillance task was intended to determine whether we could salvage the freighter crew. However we are sending in the preliminary group despite the Cybermat reports being as yet incomplete. Therefore we have failed our surveillance task."

"There is sufficient conclusion from our surveillance that the Illinate are corrupt." Team Leader stated "the Cybermats have provided no evidence for the possibility of upgrade. Although we still do not know what makes the Illinate this way the evidence remains that they are corrupt. The corruption must be sterilised. That is what the preliminary group are doing."

"Team Leader." First Assistant redirected again, "we have not yet analysed the second newcomer."  
"That is correct. Indeed." Team Leader mused. "The Doctor's companions are usually more pliable than he. Bring up the closest scan we have of his companion."

First Assistant worked the controls and a blurry image of a female appeared in the holo-projection field.  
"What information do we have on her?"  
"None. The Cybermats have not scanned her."  
"But still it is not likely that she is Illinate. The Doctor's companions are often humanoid. We could attempt an upgrade."  
First Assistant offered. "And if she instead is Illinate?"  
Team Leader looked bemusedly at her. "Then we shall soon find out."

"Team Leader I must point out that with incomplete data the results of our actions will be imprecise. Our own destruction may be imminent." First Assistant warned.  
"Perhaps. However it is the best option that we have available." Team Leader answered mildly. "We must work fast. Prepare the attack group to sterilise any Illinates that may have survived the preliminary group's efforts. If the Doctor's companion is encountered alive ensure she is kept that way."

"Yes, Team Leader."

* * *

Alone now at the console the science mission's Team Leader moved over to his First Assistant's workstation and adjusted the holographic controls for himself. "So, Doctor." He stared at the image of the Doctor's face in the middle of turning from shock to fighting fury, flicking back to see another face, then another, then another. Stubborn. Arrogant. Defiant. Destructive. Intelligent. Erratic. Meddler. Disruptive. Doctor.

"Now it is I who shall face you." Team Leader stared motionless at the Doctor's pictures, recalling everything he had synthesised upon the full length of destruction wrought by the Time Lord known as the Doctor. The evidence was conclusive and the best practical solution to mitigate the new risk was only to work faster towards securing the Cybermen's objectives.

"I do not envy myself in this matter." Team Leader finally decided and switched off the console. It was time to board the Illinate vessel.


	9. Colliding Conclusions

_A/n: Happy Christmas_

* * *

**Colliding Conclusions**

* * *

"Cybermen are ... well, Cybermen." The Doctor shrugged uncomfortably, trying to explain to Tonia as they stood there in the lift. "They don't care, they don't have feelings." He babbled his mental flurry aloud. "What do they want this ship for? Anybody can access the Parrinium on Exxilon at this point in history; it can't be that surely?"

"Doctor," Tonia interrupted. "Are the men machines like this rat?"

"They're cyber-fied organisms. Think if your body was made of metal instead of flesh. You wouldn't be you you'd be a ... Cyberman. Arguably a fate worse than death." He added more to himself. "No sense of feeling, having all that stripped away from you." He looked back to her. "All your love and hope stripped away and replaced with logical programming." He blinked at her, "love, you do know what that is, right, Tonia?"

"I know what love is!" Tonia rebuked, "It's just that some of us in this lift are trying to get ahead in life!"  
"There are people out there who spend their whole lives trying to get ahead in life, Tonia. They're so busy they miss out on actually liv-."

"Doctor!" Tonia stopped him, "won't the men machines die out eventually?"  
"I ... what?" The Doctor looked at her. "From what?"  
"Well ... how do they breed?"  
"They just make more of them. There are galaxies to plunder for spare parts. But why go after a cargo ship of all things? Waell, relaxed security." He answered his own question. "Still, a battleship wouldn't bother Cybermen." The Doctor mused. "I still want to know what they want this ship for."

The doors opened and the corridor went left and right.  
"Alright, which way?" He asked Tonia hurriedly. "We need to tell your captain the ship's in trouble."

"This way." Tonia gestured and ran up the corridor, fork and rat in hand.

* * *

The Doctor raced after Tonia. He made it halfway up the corridor when a door slid open and Donna rushed out.

"Whoa, Donna!" The Doctor just managed to grab her into his arms to stop himself from crashing headlong into her. They spun around on the spot.

_"Donna, there's-Cybermats-in-the-engines!"  
__"Doctor, there's-Cybermen-off-the-starboard-bow!"_

He gaped at Donna. "Okay, you win. We've got to tell the captain; come on!" He grabbed Donna's hand and started to move but Donna didn't budge and instead yanked him back to her spot.  
"Oi!" He gritted, slightly annoyed at the delay. "What's the matter?"

"You were heading this way, Doctor." She pointed at the narrower direction of the pink stripe along the wall that was going back over her shoulder. "Come on!" Donna pulled him forward. "Come on, Matthew!" She called back. "We need you."

* * *

The Doctor and Donna hurried, eyes set on the last door along the corridor. The stripe along the wall was getting narrower by the second.

"That's the bridge!" Matthew called out from behind them.

Donna waved at the sensor to try to let her in faster. They came in to a room tan coloured and a more calm office-looking ship bridge the Doctor could not have imagined. Tonia was over to the side and Matthew came in behind them to go stand beside her. "Captain, this is the Doctor and Donna."

A middle-aged Illinate woman stood squarely in the middle of the room to greet the Doctor and Donna. Her hair was a faded brown and wisps of it framed her face. She was standing up with her arms folded and a look of intense displeasure on her face, which was never good body language to get when trying to work with someone, the Doctor had long since found.

"Perhaps you could explain this." Her lip curled in distaste and she waved towards the Cybermat still stuck to the end of Tonia's fork.  
"Blimey, where'd that thing come from?" Donna exclaimed with a hiss, "I thought they were 'sposed to be a friendly lot!"  
"Apparently Tonia always carries one around with her for self-defense." The Doctor muttered quietly to her. "Something her mother taught her."

"Well, okay, when you put it like that it makes sense." Donna replied in a rational voice.  
"That makes sense?" The Doctor repeated in horror. "Donna!"  
"Anyways!" Donna interrupted him. "Cybermen?"

"Oh, right." The Doctor blushed and returned his attention to surviving.

* * *

Donna cleared her throat. "Captain, how do you do." She said in a gracious voice. "We've just discovered that you've got Cybermen off your starboard bow."  
"Yes, Tonia was just babbling about ... mechanical humanoids? I rather don't understand what the fuss is about."

"Mechanical Humanoids?" The Doctor repeated in shock. Now why was the Tardis translating it right this time? What was an Illinate anyway? "Uh, um, yeah. The er ... Cybermen. They aren't as friendly as your regular type humanoids."

"They're probably getting their attack squad ready right now." Donna added. "You got anything your crew can use to fight them off with, Captain? What about ... a great big ship sized fork or something? Otherwise we're all sort of going to be dead." Donna added apologetically.

"Fight them? But if you know them then surely you've spoken with them. We're Illinates; we can talk out the problem and come to an arrangement."  
"You can't talk to Cybermen!" The Doctor gritted, "Well, you can if you're lucky to survive long enough but then they don't listen to you anyway. They're programmed to kill."

"Programmed to kill!" The captain exclaimed. "Bro Mat, get the crew to the weapons lockers."  
"Captain, these are metal men. I really don't think our-."  
"Weapons, first officer! You too! I want everyone armed as a matter of A1 priority."

"Yes, ma'am." Matthew said in an unhappy voice.  
"Good luck, Matthew." Donna said gently, turning to watch him leave. The Doctor mimicked her motions.  
Matthew glanced back on his way out through the door and the Doctor saw a quiet fury in his eyes that matched his grooming style. The door closed behind him.

"That'll give us a bit of time to figure this out. Did ... Matthew crash on a nest of giant carnivorous ants or something?" The Doctor quietly asked Donna.  
"Nah; bullies."  
"Ah, well." The Doctor sniffed, "that was going to be my second guess."

* * *

The Doctor turned back "I'm sorry; in all the excitement I didn't catch your name, captain?"

"Sadie Jones." She answered dryly.  
"Right, so, Captain Jones. Great name, by the way. Jones. Rather a human name, too I might add." The Doctor spun around glancing at the consoles. Internal security, external sensor and navigational coordination were in the lineup on stage right. "Cybermen want your ship, Captain Jones. My question is 'why'." The personnel logistics, systems control, and the captain's central tie-in were on stage left of the room arrangement where Tonia was. Nothing fancy. "What's on it, eh? What's propelling their logic?" The Doctor finally twisted back to gaze at Donna for her response.

"The cargo." Donna answered frankly.  
"Infected or planning to slow up the supply?"  
"Infected." Donna frowned tensely, "a couple missiles over what's it ... 'fifteen hundred W.E.D totality' whatever that is would solve the other problem."

"Yes, of course!" The Doctor exclaimed, smiling broadly at his companion. "Brilliant, Donna!" He returned a look to Sadie Jones. "Captain Jones, Captain Sadie Jones. With a cargo hold full of Parrinium. Being followed by a ship of plague-ridden Cybermen."  
"If that's all they want then they can have it!" Sadie exclaimed with a sudden jolt, "we can just go get more-it's not worth our lives!" Sadie dashed to her console. "Evacuate cargo bays im-."

There was a loud hiss overhead catching everybody's attention and they all stopped to look up.

"Doctor!" Donna's voice was tense, "What was that noise? I don't reckon that was a good noise."  
"No, I don't think so either ..." The Doctor grabbed out his sonic from his breast pocket and scanned the roof to be sure. "It is. Carbon dioxide." He stared horrified at Donna. "The air ducts are pumping out carbon dioxide. The Cyberman must have taken control of the ship's environmental life support and managed to reverse the oxygen filtration system."

"But won't that make the doors all lock?" Donna asked.  
"It's a natural part of the air." The Doctor explained. "We breathe out carbon dioxide, Donna, the sensors won't pick that up. If anything they'd open up because they think it's one of the crew just exhaling heavily."

"Ohmigosh!" Donna exclaimed. "They're gonna smother the whole ship!"  
"Why?" Sadie asked dimly, standing beside her console.  
"Because they're using it against you. The Cybermen already have your ship. We're too late." The Doctor realised aloud. His memory went back to the mess hall. "Fifty two people. Suffocating."

The Doctor swallowed with the horror of it. "Cybermen don't need to breathe."

Around him, people started coughing.


	10. Nobody Light a Candle

**Nobody Light a Candle**

* * *

The Doctor swallowed in horror. "Cybermen don't need to breathe. The Cybermen can come and go as much as they like without air. Their robotic systems manufacture and recycle everything their biological components need including oxygen."

"Well, we need oxygen!" Donna grabbed his arms and shook him. "Doctor, wake up!"  
"Right!" He exclaimed and raced to the panel near the door to lock down the local environmental control system.

Matthew staggered in through the door and past him. "Captain." He struggled to breathe, gripping his gun with a sweaty hand. "We've ... I'm sorry." Donna ran to his side and helped into a workstation chair. "The crew, captain." He gasped. "The air stopped and ..." Matthew shook his head. "There was nothing I could do."

"There. That should keep us alive for a few hours." The Doctor announced and replaced the panel onto the wall. "Nobody use a plasma torch."  
"I'll remember that in case I find one," Donna headed back to his side. "How long have they got out there?"  
"Well if their respiratory systems are anything like humans ... not long because the Cybermen will be coming sooner than that."

"We've lost the crew." Sadie sighed, staggering back into a chair. "We're ruined. Everything we are is gone at the flick of an air control switch. The Cybermen have left nothing of us ..."

"Doctor, how do we stop the Cybermen?" Donna cut over the captain's unproductive rambling.  
"Ah ... well ..." The Doctor frowned in deep thought. "Tonia, could I have a look at your Cybermat now?"

"We just do, Donna." Matthew answered for him, standing up shakily. "They want to fight? Then they'll die fighting." Matthew gritted in quiet anger. He twisted to the captain. "I'm tired of being a target of other people's arrogance. You can't condemn someone for not wanting to be easy meat, captain. At some point survival has got to come first."  
"At what cost?" The captain shook her head with tears in her eyes.  
Matthew turned to Tonia, "Come on, Tonia, I'll need your help to recalibrate the deflectors. These aliens have given me an idea." He charged out of the door with Tonia.

"Wait a minute, wait; there's no air...!" The Doctor leapt up but Matthew and Tonia shot through the door and it closed behind them. "-Out there... And make that three hours of air left in here now."  
"Oh, Matthew." Donna said in a sorrowful voice.

The Doctor turned his head to the captain, "where do you keep your space suits?"

* * *

"Captain, space suits!" The Doctor repeated, "Where are the space suits, you've got to have space suits, captain!"

Donna turned her head back to the captain. Sadie Jones believed she was the last Illinate crewmember alive now and she was not handling it at all. She seemed to be just staring off into space with unshed tears in her eyes. Donna clasped her hand and looked up at him. "Doctor, she can't."  
He sighed, "I know. The Cybermen attack group will be up here in a minute. It won't take them long without the crew to hold them off. I can probably bring them up on internal scan." So saying he crossed over to the console that Matthew had only just been sitting at and paused over the sight of his weapon sitting there.

"Donna?"  
"Yeah?"  
"How would you describe Matthew's state of mind before he left?"  
"Spitting chips." Donna answered warily.  
"So in that case ..." The Doctor turned around to her, holding up Matthew's gun. "Don't you think it's a bit odd for him to leave his gun behind?"

Inexplicitly Sadie broke down into a fit of tears. "They've ruined us all!"

* * *

The Doctor turned on the internal scans and pictures of the ship's corridors popped up on the view screen. "They haven't reached this deck yet." He decided.

"Keep a look out, Donna."  
"Why's that always my job?" She quirked, "We need to share more jobs."  
The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver, "Oi, I do too share! You only just flew the Tardis ... 'Spacegirl'." He went back over to the workstation where he'd left the Cybermat lying on top of it.

"Go on, spaceman, y'wanna tell me before I get turned into the latest tin can? What're you up to then?"  
"If I can figure out the Cybers' encryption codes it's possible that I can reverse their control over the Illinate operating systems."  
"Wouldn't they have put a deadlock on it once they'd done it?"  
"They can't properly deadlock the ship until they have the bridge."  
"Some sort of space rule?"  
"Well, think about it." He replied absently, focusing his mind on the responses his sonic was giving out. "What's on this deck?"

"Us." Donna answered brightly. "And possibly the ship's command author-Ohmigosh-what-was-that?"  
"What!" The Doctor almost leapt up off his chair, glancing up wildly at the security pictures. There didn't seem to be anything but Cyberman on them. "What'd you see?"  
"It was the second camera on the right. I ... dunno ... it was ... too fast ..." Donna grimaced, "sorry."

"That's still a lower deck so it shouldn't be too bad right now." The Doctor looked at the normal and rather empty looking corridor on the screen, "let me know if you see it again though."

* * *

The sonic finished analysing and the Doctor had the decryption code. "Yes!" He leapt up with his eyes on the command console that Sadie was sitting at. "Captain, we need to feed this coding into the computer!"

"Doctor!" Donna yelped, "They've reached this deck."  
"I understand" Sadie answered him "I can do that." She took the sonic into her hand and began speedily inputting the information.

The Doctor sped to Donna's side and grabbed her hand just as the doors slid open.

"Y'never thought to maybe lock it while you were fixing it?" Donna gritted at him.  
"That lift is really slow." The Doctor replied calmly. "And the life support systems are on the bottom deck."

"You will cease communications." The middle Cyberman ordered.

It was clear by the behaviour of the three Cybermen of which of them was the ... the Doctor searched his memory for the right term for the right time index ... Team Leader. He and one of his assistants assessed the situation and both pointed their weapons at the Doctor. The third Cyberman crossed over to the security station by Donna's side and she clung closer to the Doctor with a small shiver.

"Hello, Doctor." The Team Leader stated blandly.

"I'd say it was nice to see you again if it wasn't," The Doctor snarked. "A non-military vessel, that's a bit too easy even for you, don't you think?"

"First Assistant, make your report."

The Cyberman at the console finished analysing the situation from the data readouts and replied in the same dark, robotic voice. "The boarding party has taken heavy casualties, Team Leader. We have miscalculated."

The Doctor looked at Donna and found her looking confusedly back at him. It didn't take much telepathic power to know that they were both puzzling over the same rational question.


	11. The Wounded

_a/n: Happy New Year!_

* * *

**The Wounded**

* * *

"Illinate. Step away from that console." The Team Leader demanded the moment he realised Sadie was still sitting at the controls. Sadie dragged herself up to a stand and stepped to the other side of the Doctor. The Cybermen Team Leader, so he called himself, looked between the three of them.

If Donna wasn't mistaken the metal bound monstrosity looked a bit lost for a 'what's next' clue. "First Assistant, lock down the command functions."  
The First Assistant passed behind Donna to get to Sadie's station and another creeping shiver went up her spine. It was a fate worse than death and Donna had the feeling like she was next on their menu.

Donna considered that the sad thing was if the Cybermen didn't have those external control ports attached to both sides of their brains heading off their emotions the mutilated things would realise it and possibly even die of personal devastation.  
"They're so fragile." She whispered, even as she said it she noticed something more. The third Cyberman pointing his weapon on the Doctor was clutching at a point in his metal body where blue coolant trickled. The marks around the perforated metal looked like a massive bear had taken a swipe at him.

"Hey," Donna drew the attention of the Team Leader, "your friend's been injured." She pointed to the third Cyberman, "you need to get back to your ship to treat him."  
"I am aware." The Team Leader replied in that dark robotic voice, "but without the Parrinium it will not matter in either case and we cannot have the Parrinium until this ship is sterilised of Illinates."

"Sterilised?" The Doctor repeated in a narky voice, "that's not a word you often hear a Cyberman use, it's always 'destroy' or 'delete'. Got the plague on your brain have you?"  
Donna clenched her teeth. The Doctor was purposefully attempting to get an emotional response. She wished he could be a little more subtle at it.  
The Team Leader stated blandly, "it is an appropriate word to use for Illinates."  
"And you're terrorists!" Sadie exclaimed, "Illinates are merchants. That's all we are; we're just capitalists! All you had to do was talk to us and we could make a trade. That's all there was to it, something you have in exchange for-."  
"We have nothing." The Team Leader answered bluntly. "First Assistant, you are taking too long. What is the problem?"

Donna turned her head to watch the second Cyberman leave Sadie's console and skirt around them to give his ... or was it her? ... report.  
"The command systems have been locked down." The Cyberman reported "the command code cryptology has been upgraded. It is no longer in Illinate."

Donna's heart sank. That meant the Cybermen had control of the computer and she and the Doctor were guaranteed a trip to the 'yuck don't think about it!' Donna gritted, her stomach churning. This was horrible, why couldn't she be a bit more useful?  
"Donna." The Doctor said quietly "you've been perfectly useful and now is not the time to have a go at yourself."  
"Beats thinking about ..." Donna gulped, dreading the monstrosity standing in front of her.

"What?" The Team Leader's voice came more intensely. "What has it been upgraded to?"  
"It appears to be a corrupted mixture of Illinate and something even more alien."  
"The only aliens are the Doctor and his companion. Therefore it must be Gallifreyan."

"Wow." Donna exclaimed quietly. "We've only been here a couple hours and we've already meddled in the entire makeup of an alien culture."  
The Doctor let out a hissing breath, "you're a fast learner, Captain Jones. Of course it figures; Matthew was fast too."

"What should we do, Team Leader?"  
The injured Cyberman standing guarding the Doctor fell to his or her knees with a vocal splutter and then collapsed to the floor.

For a paused moment the Team Leader stared at his fallen comrade before turning back to his surviving assistant with a response. "The evidence is conclusive. We must detonate the ship." He concluded. "Once the shock wave disperses the Cybermen can simply collect the Parrinium from the debris field."


	12. Surface

**Scratch the Surface**

* * *

On the besieged merchant ship's bridge the Doctor thought fast. If the Team Leader's order got through to the Cyber's ship Controller they and the Illinate crew were all dead. "Hang-on-wait-a-second!" He clamoured desperately. "Just ... wait. Team Leader, right? You're the Team Leader?"  
"Yes?"  
"Attack team leader?"  
The Cyberman looked back to his Second Assistant now unmoving on the floor.

"Course not; no, didn't think so. So then you're the scouting party's Team Leader, am I right?"  
"Yes. What is the point of this delay?"  
"I'm getting to it, just bear with me a moment, science, isn't it, science, that's your thing? You like ... stuff. Knowing about stuff; figuring it out." The Doctor hesitated, "and I know that much coz it's your job to solve the plague problem your ship's got, am I right?"  
"Correct."  
"Pretty important job."  
"Irrelevant. Only important tasks are assigned."  
"Sure, not important, no. Science, that's the thing; not being boss, no." The Doctor dashed on hastily, "okay, so then there's still something I don't get and that's when you used the word 'sterilise'. No; you didn't want to destroy the Illinate crew; you want to sterilise them. Blowing up this ship will destroy them. That isn't what you really want."  
"We are left without alternatives."  
"Yes, yes, yes, no, no! No, because you haven't told me what the sterilisation is for. What's the sterilisation for?"

The Doctor watched the Cyberman for a reaction and got a silent stiffness. "Oh," He gaped with a tremor of delight at his rival, "Oh, you don't know, do you? Oh, dear." He grinned, knowing now he had a winning card. "What is it for, go on, what's the sterilisation for? Coz science is your bit, you wanna know. Or are you gonna blow this ship up and then you'll never know the answer. The answer to the question: What are the Illinate infected with?"  
The Cyberman twitched. "They are corrupt."  
"I can see that's pretty serious." The Doctor hissed, "Still not an answer ... but ... serious."

"What?" Donna interrupted, "are they crooked or something?"  
"Corrupt, Donna, like a computer after a virus has been downloaded." The Doctor hurriedly explained. "Cybermen work like computers, the brain's the bit of hardware that needs to process everything and if it's corrupt what do you get?"  
"A faulty Cyberman." Donna nodded. "So ..." She stopped and looked instead at the Team Leader, "so how'd they get corrupt?" She turned back to the Cyberman and offered the question to him, "They seem just like normal humans, don't they? Aren't human brains corrupt?"  
"Typically not. Human brains are adaptable." The Team Leader answered, thinking, "These however are not any sort of human that we have knowledge of. They are Illinates. You do not understand any more than we do it appears."

"You want to know. You're a scientist." The Doctor repeated, making sure to keep the Team Leader from teleporting off and signalling a missile attack. "You really do want to find out."  
The Team Leader paused in thought.

* * *

"First Assistant. One of the Illinates in the corridor attacked us. It is necessary for you to assume the Second Assistant's role as well as your own. Guard the Captain." The First Assistant raised his or her weapon at Sadie.

"You are captain of this ship." Team Leader stated. Team Leader moved to the surveillance console where Matthew's weapon still sat. He picked it up and threw it at her feet making her jump. "There is one of your weapons. You know how to operate it. Pick up the weapon and defend your ship."

Sadie was shaking at the Doctor's side. She didn't move.

"Pick up the weapon. Defend yourself. You are under attack. You will manage at least one shot."

Sadie whimpered and the Doctor turned to see her back away.

"This does not register as a normal humanoid response to me." The Team Leader stated. "Humanoids are programmed for survival." The Team Leader stated. "Pick up the weapon, captain."  
"No; I ..." Sadie's voice choked in her throat.  
"Clearly the motivating force is not sufficiently realistic for her." The Cyberman shifted position and aimed his weapon at Donna.

"No!" Sadie shrieked. The next instant there was the organic sound of crackling bones. At the first sound, the Doctor grabbed Donna and dashed down for cover behind the nearest console before the Cybermen's guns went off.

* * *

From their place of safety, the Doctor looked out and recognised the wings instantly.

"Krillitane!" The Doctor yelped to Donna over the noise of the fight, "the Illinate are Krillitane, oh, I'm so unbelievably thick!"  
"They weren't acting like Krillitane, Doctor."  
"Well, they are now." The Doctor watched the transformed Sadie ripping the Cybermen into smaller and smaller bits in her rage. "Scratch the surface ..." He gazed at the mismatch of genes, the tough wings, the hot glaring eyes, the three inch incisors and the six inch claws. "... And the real Krillitane lies beneath."


End file.
